Essay Example on U.S. Criminal Justice System

With his intimate experience with the criminal justice system and the victims that fall under it, Bryan’s come to realise its corruption, biases, and ultimately, its incompetence to recognise the moral implications of the death penalty, or any of the punishments it’s subjected to the poor, falsely accused, different races, and the mentally unwell. The argument that Bryan makes is that the system was, unfortunately, more harsh towards the less fortunate of society, innocent or not, and failed time-and-time again to maintain impartial ruling. Through the cases in this book, it unravels many of the underlying issues with the system, such as neglect of prison conditions, abuse of power, and its morality. One of the main trials in this story was Walter McMillian’s murder case, which largely exposed the corruption and biases within the criminal justice system.

To summarize, police, investigators, and attorneys were able to arrest Walter on false charges of sodomy to detain him, conspire to coerce confessions, create a false narrative, and eventually, continue with their careers without penalization. Witnesses and exculpatory evidence were completely ignored, and rumors of Walter would spread, diminishing his reputation as time passed with him in prison. Somehow, they were able to continue with all these legal issues, violations, and opposing evidence against the justice system, showing the bias the system had against African Americans like McMilliam - and the advantage white people had with being able to get away with their convoluted claims and excuses. They were too coddling with their own and didn’t seem to care for their misconduct, proving such immunity and position to be dangerous for anyone that will abuse it. Another large issue were the prisons - women that were imprisoned (mostly minor offenses like drug charges, abortions because fetuses were considered children, and writing a bad check) faced sexual harrassment constantly. Especially in Tutwiler, male employees were able to freely sexually assault/harrass the female inmates, as the system offered no solutions or penalties for the perpetrators. Instead, they only transfer them to other facilities, just for them to come back and do the same thing. Their negligence only revealed that the justice system didn’t care for who they were locking up, and treated them like livestock for their profitable system.

The last and most questionable part of the criminal justice system was their morality. The death penalty itself and its implication on us humans was largely challenged by Bryan Stevenson. In the case of a black, fourteen-year-old boy, George Stinney, he was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of two girls, simply because he was the last one to see them. The only evidence provided was the Sheriff’s baseless claims of a confession, and the trial was held with an all-white jury. His execution was swift without the support of lawyers or his parents who had fled out of fear. There was little-to-no evidence, yet so much certainty that he had done it, largely because he was black. George is another example of the unfairness that the justice system administers onto children (black, in this case), especially having no legal/familial support to defend from the more valued claims of the whites. They didn’t hesitate to kill a child out of anger, believing that he had killed another.

Many of these cases resulted in unnecessary sentencing despite the lack of evidence, or complete negligence of character and proper evaluation. In short, all these people were victims of the justice system, more than of their own actions. Their treatment was inhumane, and left them with no compassion, support, or the nonpartison judgement promised by the system.